Farewell, Facebook

I just un-friended Facebook. It’s not that I have a problem with Mark Zuckerberg. He seems like a sweet, filthy-rich kid with a lot going for him, including a smart and lovely new wife. I hope he doesn’t take this personally.

But I can no longer live two lives, the one involving real people and problems and the make-believe one that skips across my computer screen every 20 minutes.

Actually, that’s the problem. When I was ‘on’ Facebook, I had the constant urge to check in with my 398 friends, most of whom I’d never actually met and wouldn’t recognize if they were in the process of giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

At some point, I started paying more attention to who was ‘liking’ what and which ‘friends’ were playing that stupid farm game or posting pictures of sunsets (hello, Rod McKuen?) or asking me to join this or that cause that I actually forgot to wish my brother a Happy Birthday. But I did manage to post “Happy Birthday” on the web pages of 27 strangers.

Facebook has its positive aspects. It allowed me to reconnect with some old friends from Merion Mercy Academy who I hadn’t seen in over three decades. They all turned out quite well.

It also gave me a forum to post my Daily News columns, which in turn garnered me a lot more negativity. Only this time, instead of sending anonymous hate mail like the cowards on philly.com, they posted on my wall with photos…kind of like a Hater I.D.

It just got to be too much, and I realized that my internet life was taking up too much space in the one that I’ve been living since 1961.

So farewell, Facebook. It was fun for the three or so years we lasted. And adios ‘friends.’ I’d say I’ll miss you, but I’m not sure if any of you are online.